‘Business’ needs be told a few home truths (From Worcester News)

‘Business’ needs be told a few home truths

12:40pm Wednesday 8th February 2012 in Read

SIR – This country is being accused of being antibusiness because Fred Goodwin was stripped of his knighthood and RBS boss Stephen Hester was pressed to forego his £963,000 bonus.

That must be a first for a Tory-led government.

‘Business’ is very quick to remind us of how much we rely on them for our economic survival and that, if we go too far, then they will upsticks to the Orient and leave us in the lurch.

It is, therefore, appropriate to remind ‘business’ that Charles de Gaulle once said that the cemeteries are full of indispensible people.

Furthermore, without 27 million people going to work and paying in some £40 billion in wages and salaries to their bank accounts every month, there would be no ‘business’.

Bankers and boardroom fat cats need to be told that excessive rewards in the way of bonuses amounts to the misappropriating of money that rightfully should belong to shareholders and customers, especially where banks are concerned.

Paying out pennies in interest on people’s savings while rewarding themselves with huge bonuses is outrageous, especially when customers’ deposits have been used for speculative commercial gambling.

Those threatening to leave probably use tax avoidance schemes anyway, so it would be no loss.

There are plenty of genuine businesses, including mutuals, that would jump at the chance of replacing them and providing financial services to the hard-working population of this country.

PETER NIELSEN
Worcester